Tag: 1946 Page 1 of 4

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, March 9, 1946.

“PFFTHFF,” said Frise.

“Which?” I inquired.

“Thipff,” said Jim. “Thoop! Something blew in my mouth. Felt like a pigeon feather or something…”

“Just a little soot,” I assured him. “There’s black on your lip.”

“Pffthff,” repeated Jimmie, wiping his mouth.

“Here, pay attention to your driving!” I warned. “You’re steering all over the street.”

“Well, if you had something blown in your mouth,” complained Jim, “you wouldn’t like it either.”

“Aw, just a flake of soot,” I submitted. “From one of the big factory chimneys.”

“It felt as big as a Plymouth Rock feather¹,” said Jim, still wiping.

“You can’t be fussy,” I philosophized, “and live in cities. It’s a wonder more things don’t blow into our mouths. Worse than hen feathers.”

“Doubtless,” said Jim, winding up the car window, “we do have a lot of pretty gruesome things blown in our mouths and noses without ever knowing it. When you look at these city streets, in the month of March, with all the accumulated filth of four months of winter beginning to lie revealed, it makes you think, eh?”

“What careless, dirty, sloppy creatures human beings are,” I mused. “Tossing away cigarette butts, packages, candy wrappers. Airily flinging away on to the public domain, any junk they have no use for…”

“Look up there!” pointed Jim.

From the upstairs window of a house we were passing, a woman was leaning out and beating a large mop against the bricks, down wind. A trail of dust, hair, and other light debris floated in a cloud into the public air, and into whatever windows were down wind.

“We’re really,” I submitted, “not much advanced since the days of Queen Elizabeth, when everybody just opened the upstairs windows and dumped the sewage and the garbage out into the street. That was what gutters were for, in the old days.”.

“What’s the difference, actually,” added Jim, “between a lady of Tudor times dumping the slop pail out the upstairs window, and that lady back there beating out her mop into the open street?”

“Thipff,” I said. “Thpooie! Jim, do you see anything…?”

I leaned out so Jim could look at my mouth.

“I just felt something,” I said, “blow into my mouth then. Do you see any hair or wool or anything?”

Jim slowed the car and examined me.

“Just a little soot, by the look of it,” he said.

“Thank goodness,” I cried. “I half fancied I had caught something that woman was shaking out of her mop. Thpew! Fffptt!”

I got out my hankie and wiped off my tongue.

“In days to come²,” asserted Jim, “when public health and sanitation is as well looked after as it should be, these days we live in will be regarded with exactly the same horror with which we look back on Henry the Eighth’s time. When you think of our garbage wagons plodding up the windy streets, with the boys hoisting up those battered, ramshackle containers we know as garbage cans…”

“Leaving a trail behind them,” I cut in, “of little bits of garbage, dirt and filth along the streets, to be rolled over and squashed by traffic, to be ground into particles, to dry and be picked up by the breeze and wafted far and wide.”

“The city of the future,” declared Jimmie, “will supply the householder with official cartons, sanitary cartons, in which all refuse from sweepings to food waste will be placed and sealed. These sealed containers will be picked up every other day by travelling incinerators which will burn the refuse under intense electric heat…”

“Haw,” I snorted, “you mean atomic atomizers³. A neat little truck with a small quantity of atomic energy, which will consume the refuse so that not even any smoke or steam is injected into the public air.”

“We’ll Lose Our Smokes”

“The public air!” cried Jim. “What a perfect expression. The public air. Air is about the only thing that is truly public. You can’t confine it. Or if you do, it goes bad. It isn’t like land or water, which people can own or control. Air belongs to all men alike. And there ought to be some recognition of that fact. Anybody who pollutes the air should be taken in hand as a public enemy.”

“Well, when you toss a cigarette butt out the car window,” I submitted, “as you did just now, you are a public enemy. That cigarette butt is fragile, and the nearest thing to dust. In a few minutes, under the rush of this morning traffic, that cigarette will be ground under a car’s wheel and pulverized. The wisp of paper will float off in the breeze. The scattered little grains of tobacco will join the indescribable and complex mass of dirt and dust that swirls forever over the earth. Any germs from your mouth that might have adhered to the wet end of the butt will be set free to carry, infection…”

“I haven’t any infection!” protested Jimmie.

“How do you know?” I inquired. “It takes 48 hours for the infection of the common cold to assert itself in you. How do you know you haven’t got the mumps, quincy, croup, or even leprosy and don’t know it yet? But you tossed that cigarette butt out into the public air as cheerfully and thoughtlessly as that woman back there was beating out her dirty mop!”

“Cigarette butts are the least of our worries,” came back Jim. “It’s far worse things we should put our minds on.”

“No, Jim,” I countered. “We’ve got to start with ourselves. We’ve got to stop tossing cigarette butts into the public air before we begin trying to correct the offences of others.”

“Listen,” said Jim, slowing the car he could argue better, “if we start with cigarette butts, the next thing somebody is going to argue about is smoking⁴. They are going to say that it is a public offence to fill the public air with cigarette smoke. That is the thin edge of the wedge. Once you start reforming, somebody comes along with a better reform. We begin with cigarette butts. Somebody comes along and takes away our smokes.”

“Common sense is all I suggest,” I asserted. “It stands to reason a little tobacco smoke, puffed into the air and vanishing instantly, is far different thing from a wet, sticky cigarette butt flung out at random into the public domain.”

“Common sense,” decreed Jim, “does not enter into the realm of public affairs. If you are going into the reform business, I warn you, be very careful where you start.”

My eyes were caught, at that instant, by a startling spectacle. We had passed out of the residential district and were entering the downtown area. And from the tall chimney of a factory, right ahead of us, there suddenly billowed up the biggest, blackest, oiliest boil of smoke I ever saw. It was like an explosion of smoke. And it fairly wallowed out of the tall stack.

“Whoa, Jim!” I cried, seizing his arm. “Slow down! Just take a look at that smoke!”

Jim ran to the curb and stopped. We sat and gazed at the spectacle. Against the gray March sky, the jet black smoke poured almost like a liquid. In vast, fat coils, it rolled thickly, heavily. It created a giant smudge across the sky and dissipated itself slowly. The buildings beyond were blocked from view.

“For Pete’s sake!” breathed Jimmie.

“In this day and age,” I enunciated. “Talk about capitalistic insolence!”

“Why,” cried Jim, “that’s an absolute outrage. Fouling the air. Blackening the property for miles around. An injury not merely to the public health but to private property!! Something ought to be done!”

“The owner of that factory,” I declared hotly, “is the perfect example of the lawless adventurer. He could put a smoke abater on that chimney…”

“He doesn’t even need that,” interrupted Jim. “All he has to do is feed the furnace properly. A little coal at a time. Build up a fire, little by little, adding a little coal at a time. And the fire consumes the smoke.”

“Maybe it isn’t the capitalist’s fault at all,” I suggested. “Eh? Maybe it’s the fault of some lazy beggar of a fireman⁵. A proletariat.”

“Proletarian,” corrected Jim. “Some lazy proletarian who can’t be bothered attending a fire properly, but comes along once every few hours and dumps a whole load of coal on.”

“And wastes the best of the coal,” I agreed, “by sending it up the chimney in smoke!”

“Correct,” cried Jim. “What is all that black smoke coiling so oily into the air? It’s pure chemical gas, full of carbon and valuable heating elements, being wasted in the air.”

“Let’s Do Something!”

“A waste to his employer,” I summed up, “and an offence against the public. Jim! Let’s act. Enough of this talk. Let’s act!”

“How?” demanded Jim.

“Let’s go in,” I said, “and catch that fireman red-handed. Let’s drag him out to take a look at what he’s doing with that chimney. And then, let’s tell him a thing or two about wasting fuel and ruining the public health and damaging private property all around the neighborhood.”

Jim glanced at his watch.

“We should be at the office,” he said.

“It won’t take 10 minutes,” I protested. “Jim, if we have the public interest at heart, we’ve got to DO something about it. There are enough people willing to talk about it. Let us DO something!”

“First let us speak to the manager,” suggested Jim.

We drove down and parked opposite the factory. We walked across the street, dodging the morning business rush traffic, and entered the front office doorway.

There was only a secretary in view, taking off her hat.

The building was icy cold.

“Is the manager about?” I inquired.

“He won’t be down till around 10,” said the young lady, shivering and rubbing her hands.

“Is there a foreman or superintendent we could see?” suggested Jim.

“No,” said the young lady, “we aren’t back in production yet, you see? A skeleton staff comes on around 10 o’clock. We’re re- organizing the plant…”

“I’ll tell you,” I said very kindly, “we’re a committee of citizens interested in public health and such, things, see? And we noticed the awful clouds of smoke, terrible black smoke, coming from the smoke-stack of this factory.”

“I see,” said the young lady, drawing herself up very stiff.

“We don’t wish to make trouble, of course,” I added, “but if we could just see the fireman, whoever he is. The janitor?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t the authority,” said the young lady coldly.

“Still, you wouldn’t put anything in our way.” I submitted, “if we just dropped in and had a chat with the fireman? We wish merely to explain to him that he is not only creating a public nuisance, a public menace, but he is also wasting his employer’s fuel. If he stoked the fire a little at a…”

“Take that door to the left,” said the young lady, rubbing her hands and hunching up her shoulders.

The door led down a staircase to the basement. We could hear furnace sounds along the passage-way. And we walked along to the furnace-room where we discovered an elderly gent with a shovel patting ashes into ash cans.

The furnace was one of those old-fashioned monsters set in a pit.

“Good-day,” we said pleasantly.

“Good-day to you,” agreed the old boy, relaxing.

“Look,” I said, “you’ll excuse us for coming in on you like this. But we only have your interest at heart.”

“Life insurance?” asked the old boy.”

“No,” said Jim. “Smoke. Do you realize what a terrific smoke barrage you are creating? Will you come outside a minute and take a look at your chimney?”

“Aw,” said the old boy, “run along!”

“Pardon me,” I began firmly and loudly, for the old boy was making a racket with his shovel. “We haven’t seen the manager of this place yet. We’ve come to you, first. It’s for your own good. We happen to be a committee of citizens…”

“Self-appointed,” put in Jim, not too loud.

“…a committee of citizens interested,” I pursued, “in public health.”

“Run along, now,” said the old boy, commencing on the ashes again.

“I suggest,” I shouted above the racket, “that you at least listen to what we have to say. Otherwise, we will take steps that will astonish you.”

That always gets them.

“What’ll you do?” he demanded belligerently.

“Are you aware of the smoke nuisance you are creating?” I came back.

“I’ve heard little else,” he declared, “for 30 years.”

“Do you realize,” I insinuated, “that for 30 years you have been advertising to the whole world that you are a punk fireman?”

“Is that so?” he scoffed.

“Only a dope,” I pursued, “would heap coal on a fire so that half of it goes up in smoke.”

“Is-that-so?” he admired.

“If you lay the coal on,” I informed him, “a little at a time, so that the fire builds up and consumes the gases, little by little, there is no smoke.”

“You don’t say?” he sneered, wide-eyed.

“May I demonstrate?” I asked politely, ignoring his bad manners.

“Certainly,” he replied, handing me the shovel.

I removed my coat. I seized the shovel. I tripped open the fire door. I took a moderate scoop of coal.

“Observe now,” I said. “Watch how this small shovelful is instantly seized upon by the fire, the gases consumed, and the fuel embodied immediately, as it were, in the fire.”

“Well, well, well,” said the old boy, relaxing back into his chair.

At which moment, we heard footsteps of the stairs and a man who looked like a gas-meter reader, with a small ledger under arm, appeared at the furnace-room door.

“I warned you, Peters,” he said sharply.

“What can I do?” said the old boy, getting hurriedly out of his chair. “When citizens’ committees keep coming down and showing me how to fire my own furnace.. .”

“What’s this?” said the stranger.

“Don’t blame me,” said the old boy, Peters. “Blame these guys. I’m tending my furnace, when they come down and interfere. They insist on stoking her…”

“Peters,” said the stranger severely, “never before have such billows of smoke come from your furnace. We’ve had 40 complaints inside the last 20 minutes.”

“You’re a Menace”

“Am I stoking it?” demanded Peters sadly. “Or is this little guy?”

“What are you doing here?” demanded the gas-meter man bitterly.

“I came down-we came down,” I expostulated, “when we saw those clouds of smoke, to protest, and to show this man how to feed a furnace properly…”

“Yah, that’s their story,” said old Mr. Peters.

“I think, gentlemen,” said the stranger acidly, “if you will leave matters of this kind in the hands of the civic authorities…”

“We didn’t make that smoke,” I stated pleasantly. “Why, I had only laid on a couple of small shovels…”

“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said the stranger, opening his book.

“Come on,” muttered Jimmie, helping me into my coat.

So we stamped upstairs.

“You see how it is,” said Jim.

“I didn’t know there was a civic department working on smoke,” I protested.

“Probably the health department,” said Jim. “Or maybe the police.”

We crossed over into the car. Jim started her and gave her the gun. We pushed out into the traffic.

At King St. a motorcycle cop appeared beside us. He rode level and then drew ahead, his hand up.

“He’s signalling you, Jim,” I warned.

We drew into the curb.

The cop parked in front of us and walked back.

Jim ran down the car window for him.

“Are you aware,” he asked pleasantly, “that there is a by-law referring to excessive exhaust smoke from motor cars?”

“Eh?” cried Jim.

“Do you know,” continued the cop cheerfully, “that this old stoneboat of yours kicks up so much smoke from the exhaust that you are apt to cause a fatal accident any day?”

“Smoke?” queried Jim, giving me an agonized side glance.

“I came up behind you.” said the cycle cop, “just when you pulled away from the curb a couple of blocks back, and I couldn’t see my handle-bars in front of me. I tell you, you’re a menace to traffic. How about getting that exhaust looked at? How about getting some gaskets? How about checking your oil consumption? Eh?”

“Okay,” said Jim, “okay, officer, I’ll attend to it right away.”

So we drove on to the parking lot, not even thinking.

---

Editor’s Notes:

1. A Plymouth Rock is a type of chicken. ↩︎
2. Clean air and anti-pollution laws were still to come. With so many coal furnaces (including in people’s homes), and all of the smoking, the air must have been not very pleasant. ↩︎
3. People still had great hope for atomic energy at the time. ↩︎
4. There were few smoking restrictions at the time, as you could smoke in most public spaces. ↩︎
5. In this context, the fireman is the one who stokes the furnace with coal. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, February 9, 1946.

“They must be a tough bunch,” commented Jimmie Frise, looking up from the newspaper.

“Who?” I inquired.

“These kids on Operation Muskox¹,” said Jim. “They’re going to drive snowmobiles loaded with fighting equipment from away up at Fort Churchill, on Hudson Bay, straight across the sub-Arctics, to Edmonton. Three thousand miles. In winter.”

“It’s time,” I informed him, “that we Canadians lost our awe of winter. What’s so wonderful about these soldiers going on a hike across northern Canada? Our mining men have been doing it for 30, 40 years.”

“Well,” said Jim, shivering, “I wouldn’t care to be with them.”

“Look,” I submitted. “We Canadians have a very great responsibility. We are one of the small handful of nations bordering on the Arctic. There’s Russia, Finland, Norway, Sweden -and us. Now, all those other nations of the Arctic are very Arctic-conscious. But we Canadians all stand with our faces to the south. We yearn over the border southward. The Swedes and Norwegians and Finns developed ages ago an Arctic culture. They have found mines, and built towns and cities, far into the Arctic. Now Russia is doing the same. But we still huddle along the U.S. border; and most young Canadians dream of Hollywood.”

“And most old Canadians,” laughed Jimmie, “dream of Florida.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “Instead of loving winter, we hate it. Instead of facing north, we huddle south. Suggest to a young man that he pack his bag and vanish into the north and he shudders. What we need is a new Horace Greeley² to say to the Canadians, ‘Go north, young man, go north!’ That way, fortune lies.”

“Maybe this Muskox expedition, if it gets enough publicity,” suggested Jim, “will inspire a lot of young men to go really north. I mean, into the real Arctic.”

“The Arctic,” I assured him, “has had any amount of publicity. Did you ever hear of Sir John Franklin³? One hundred and twenty-five years ago, when he was just a junior officer of the British navy, Lieut. John Franklin was sent on a sort of Operation Muskox by the British admiralty. He was to go overland, from somewhere in Hudson Bay, to explore the Polar sea and find out if there was a northwest passage to the Pacific.”

“Somebody,” muttered Jim, “is always looking after us. This new Operation Muskox is intended to try out military equipment in case we ever need to fight anybody on our northern frontier. Franklin was sent by the British government to find out how quickly the Royal Navy could get from the north Atlantic to the Pacific.”

“Maybe,” I pointed out, “some British merchants had friends at the admiralty. Merchants are always looking for a reduction in freight rates.”

“What happened to Franklin?” inquired Jim.

“Lieut. Franklin, with two midshipmen named Hood and Back,” I recounted, “and a naturalist by the name of Dr. Richardson, arrived at Fort York, on Hudson Bay-that’s a little south of Churchill – in 1819, and spent four years exploring. In canoes they worked in to Lake Winnipeg, then up to Lake Athabasca, then up to Great Slave lake and around it. Then down the Coppermine river to the Polar sea.”

“In 1819?” cried Jimmie.

“Eight hundred miles north and west of Churchill, where our Muskox expedition is now,” I assured him, “Franklin and his expedition…”

“Just the four of them?” protested Jim.

“No,” I admitted. “They had a character by the name of John Hepburn, an ordinary seaman, to whom Franklin more than once credits the saving of the lives of the entire expedition. They also had French-Canadian canoemen and Indian guides and hunters to supply them with game.”

“Holy smoke,” sighed Jim. “No airplanes to drop supplies to them!”

1,200 Miles on Snow-shoes

“In 1821,” I informed him, “one of the midshipmen, Back, with three Indians, spent five months travelling back over the trail for provisions, on snow-shoes, from November to March, a distance of 1,200 miles. And all he had for shelter was one blanket and one deer skin.”

“Holy…” cried Jim. “A midshipman!”

“All of Back’s snow-shoe journey.” I pointed out, “was far north of where Operation Muskox is going!”

“So it’s nothing new?” supposed Jim.

“New!” I scoffed. “Listen: About every hundred miles farther into the Arctic Franklin’s expedition from the British navy went, they would come to a large log house. And in that house, 125 years ago, they would meet a gentleman by the name of McVicar or McGillivray or McDougall or McDonald…”

“Aha,” cut in Jim, “the fur traders!”

“Who had been up there,” I finished, “all their lives, and had succeeded somebody by the name of McAndrews or Fraser or Logan, who had been living, quite cheerfully, all their lives, for a hundred years back. Jim, Scotland occupied the Arctic 200 years ago.”

“Then,” protested Jim, “why isn’t the Arctic populated now?”

“We ran out of Scotchmen,” I explained.

Jim got up and looked out the window. And shivered.

“It’s hard to believe,” he murmured.

“Skiing,” I stated, “is doing something to arouse in young Canadians a little love of winter. It’s only in cities and towns that winter looks horrible. And that’s not on account of winter. That’s because of cities and towns. We build our cities and towns for summer. In Norway, and our other Arctic neighbors, they build lovely chalets that look perfect in a winter setting. The average Canadian house, in winter, looks like a cat left out in the rain.”

“And our dress, in Canada,” contributed Jimmie. “Our Canadian styles, for coats, suits, boots and shoes, are set by a gang of gents from the suit and cloak trade in annual convention meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, or Miami, Florida. Canadians should develop a style of clothing that is Canadian. It should be based on Scottish, Norwegian and Russian fashions. We should wear heavy tweeds and homespuns. Our winter boots should be stout half-Wellingtons and thick brogues, instead of these silly St. Louis, Missouri, low shoes, with goloshes…”

“That was what I was saying,” I reminded. “We yearn over the southern border!”

“There’s nothing we can do about it” concluded Jim, still shivering at what he saw out the window – the grimy, sleety, slushy, sooty prospect of Toronto in mid-winter.

“Oho, yes there is,” I retorted.

Jim turned and looked at me sarcastically.

“We,” I enunciated, “suppose ourselves to be sportsmen. In spring, summer and autumn, we fish and hunt. We love to disport ourselves in the open air – so long as it isn’t cool.”

“Fair weather sports?” suggested Jim.

“I’m afraid that’s what we are, Jim,” I stated sadly.

“Who would want to be out rabbit hunting,” he demanded, “on a day like this?”

“I bet, out in the country, it’s a swell day,” I asserted. “What makes the day look dismal are those sloppy, grimy buildings, covered with soot and dirty snow. Out in the country even with this gray sky, I’ll bet there is a zest and tang to the air. I’ll bet the landscape, the spruce and cedars, the skyline, with the tracery of elm trees, the woodlots dark and bluish in the distance…”

“It Would Be Romantic”

“You may have something there,” said Jim with animation. “We speak of a man being ‘bushed’ from living too long in the wilderness. I wonder if we city people aren’t ‘citied’ the same way?”

“It could be,” I agreed. “Maybe that’s why Canadians as a whole dislike winter. They’re ‘citied’.”

“Personally,” stated Jim loudly, “I don’t see any reason why two guys like us – who enjoy every minute of the outdoors from May to November – couldn’t get just as big a kick out of the woods in winter.”

“There’s no fishing or shooting at this season,” I reminded.

“No, but there are winter birds and animals, to see,” declared Jim, “and tracks in the snow. A true lover of the outdoors can surely get as big a kick out of trailing a fox or a partridge in the snow… saaay, how about it?”

“We could go,” I concurred, standing up, “in honor of the boys on Operation Muskox. To show our appreciation of what that little band of Canadians is doing for Canadians as a whole, some of us old-timers ought to spend a few winter week-ends, camping on their old familiar fishing or hunting grounds.”

“Listen,” cried Jimmie enthusiastically, turning his back on the window., “how about going up and camping on Manitou Creek somewhere! Maybe at the Blue Hill where I lost that big buck two seasons ago. Man, it would be wonderful to see that country in mid-winter! It would be romantic.”

“We can drive to Fraserville,” I contributed, delighted. “And snow-shoe in to Manitou creek. It isn’t four miles.”

“We’ll camp beside Blue Hill,” exulted Jimmie, “on the sheltered side, whichever way the wind is blowing.”

“We’ll take my little silk tent,” I listed.

“And my red tarpaulin, which we’ll set up with sticks for a windbreak,” contributed Jim.

“I’ll wear snow-shoes,” I set forth.

“And I’ll wear skis,” determined Jim.

“And our sleeping bags,” I added.

“We’ll get a sled,” enthused Jim, “on which we can stow all our…”

“Nothing doing!” I interrupted firmly. “You can’t haul a sled on skis!”

“Why, you’d never feel it,” protested Jim. “A small sled, and you on snow-shoes…”

“We’ll each,” I insisted, “carry our share in pack-sacks. Our bedrolls, spare clothes, food. I’ll carry the little silk tent. You carry the tarpaulin.”

“We ought to haul a sled,” muttered Jim.

“It’s only for Saturday and Sunday,” I pointed out.

So Friday night, after the most delightful three previous, nights of planning, packing, drawing up lists, replanning, unpacking, repacking and relisting, we loaded Jim’s closed car and headed for Fraserville, where we had arranged with Joe Hurtubise, over the long-distance telephone, to spend the night at Joe’s combination general store and hotel.

The minute we got outside the city limits, we knew we were doing the right thing. Not half a mile past the last street car terminal, the whole face of nature altered. The grimy city was left behind and our headlights bored into a wonderland of white. And every mile grew more snowy and more chaste and beautiful. Not 10 miles out of town a big jack-rabbit bounded across the highway in our headlights.

“Ah, boy!” gloated Jimmie at the steering wheel.

Through silent, serene wintry country we entered small villages that looked beautiful in the white night. We proceeded slowly through a couple of larger towns, seeing once more, though not quite as repulsive, the slushy, murky ruin that a town makes of winter.

Then came the rising country where winter in its rarest beauty really comes – the beginning of the highlands of Ontario. The highway was cleanly plowed and swept, and our car soared through the gleaming night like a bird. Shadows of woods, deep shade of cedar and spruce, became more frequent. Inside the car, we could feel the new, keener freshness of the air.

Joe Hurtubise was waiting up for us and put our laden car in his shed. We had a light snack of cold pork, pumpkin pie and boiled tea, then went to bed with instructions to Joe to wake us well before 6 a.m. so we could set out on our Operation Muskox with the actual dawn.

It was a beautiful dawn. Not a soul in Fraserville was awake when we stepped out of Joe’s door into the pearly frost of a perfect morn. The cold pinched the corners of our nostrils.

Jim got into his ski harness, I harnessed on my snow-shoes and Joe helped us both get into our pack-sacks.

“Well, so long,” called Joe, who always seemed to perish with the cold,” so long boys, I still think you is nuts.”

And we set off down the road for the side road that leads to Manitou creek – an old familiar road in November.

A Strange Country

It was incredibly unfamiliar in February. It was like an undiscovered country. Jim went ahead, sliding long-legged on his skis. I came behind, wide-legging it on my snow- shoes. Up hills, down dales, past swampy bends full of silent and deathly cedars we have never noticed in November, we made good time. We halted frequently to gaze on the landscape, so strange, though we knew every yard of it in summer and autumn. Unknown valleys appeared, only a few hundred yards off the beaten path. Strange hummocks and little rocky cliffs stood forth which even in autumn, when the leaves are down; we did not know existed. We halted for chickadees. We saw a bevy of redpolls, not much bigger than chickadees, but of a rosy and innocent chubbiness, like cherubs. Several Canada jays – the gray, bullheaded silent jays – floated ghostly into sight of us to mutter mysteriously at our intrusion. We saw all kinds of tracks – squirrel, mice and what must have been a porcupine because it left a wide furrow in the snow.

“To think,” said Jim, “what we have been missing all these years.”

“You notice,” I said, “that it is getting kind of hazy. I think we ought to get in to Blue Hill and get our camp made…”

A little wind began to disturb the bare and rigid branches of the trees overhead. A few snowflakes hustled past, like vagrants. It grew grayer. Jim, leading, paused only once after a long steady march. And this time, it was to beat his arms around his chest.

“Colder, eh?” he called.

“You ought to use snow-shoes,” I informed him. “They keep you warmer than skis.”

Jim skied on. Up hill, down dale, round curves, through swamp and ever darkening woods, we bore on; and about mid-morning, coming out on a plateau, we saw Blue Hill not half a mile ahead. We studied the wind, now steadily rising, and decided the southwest side of Blue Hill would be the place to pitch our tent.

Blue Hill is one of the wildest and most rugged features of the country where we hunt deer. It is surrounded by a tangled forest of living trees and the charred remains of ancient bush fires.

But upholstered with snow, it was the simplest thing in the world to work around the southern side and find an ideal camping spot. Manitou creek, still gurgling, guaranteed us our water supply not 50 feet away. Old Blue Hill, granite and grim, broke the rising northeaster that was showering small, anxious snowflakes in intermittent gusts on us.

We downed our pack-sacks. With my snow-shoes, we dug down and found a good level spot for our tent. We strung up the tent. We cut balsam boughs for the floor of the tent, thick, deep, fragrant. We set up the tarpaulin. We unpacked our gear. I rigged a shelf of boughs in a deep snowbank for our larder. Jim got a fire going.

“I’m perished,” he said.

“I’ll be cook,” I offered.

And while the sky dropped lower and the northeast wind began to wail in the trees and shove at our tent, I proceeded with lunch.

It is astonishing how hard it is to crack an egg into a frying pan with mitts on.

Jim went into the tent, and came out immediately to stand near the fire and beat his arms around his chest.

“What’ll we do after lunch?” he quivered.

“We could mooch around, looking for wild animal tracks.” I suggested, delicately breaking another egg with my mitts on.

“It’s going to snow and drift,” said Jim, “and the tracks will be all covered up.”

“We can go for a hike, and look at some of the runways we know.” I suggested, shaking the frying pan with my mitts on.

“We don’t want to get lost, with a blizzard coming on,” warned Jim.

“We won’t get lost,” I asserted. “We know this country like a book.”

Jim stopped thumping his arms and gazed around at the landscape.

“I don’t recognize it at all,” he said hollowly. “I never saw this country before in my life…”

“Now, now, now!” I cautioned, poking the bacon with my long-handled camp fork.

“Have you been in the tent yet?” asked Jim, resuming his beating. “It’s like a damp ice-box.”

“We can open the flaps,” I explained, “and let the heat of the fire reflect in…”

Jim tied the flaps back, but the gathering wind ballooned the little tent grotesquely. It pulled loose a couple of the tie ropes from the ground.

“We’ll have to repitch the tent, with its back to the wind,” said Jimmie.

We ate our eggs and bacon, with mitts on. The sky dropped right down to earth. The wind moaned and wailed. Snow came so suddenly that we could not even see Blue Hill, a hundred yards behind us…

Just as dark fell, four hours later, Joe Hurtubise looked out his parlor window and saw us coming out of the blizzard.

He had the door open for us to stumble in.

“I knowed,” he said heartily, as he helped us off with the packs, “I knowed you wasn’t THAT nuts!”

---

Editor’s Notes: One of the readers of this site has the original artwork for this story. You can see it below with the note that it was received on December 20 for issue on February 9th.

1. Operation Musk Ox was an 81 day operation by the Canadian Military at the time of this article. The goal was to determine how defendable Canada was. More can be found online here as well as video here. ↩︎
2. Horace Greely was an American newspaper publisher famous for the quote “Go west young man!” ↩︎
3. John Franklin is a well known explorer whose ships were recently discovered in 2014 and 2016 and are now designated as the Wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site. ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 9, 1946.

“It’s your duty,” declared Jimmie Frise.

“Awfff!” I scoffed.

“Look,” said Jim. “The meeting isn’t five blocks from where we sit here in your home.”

“Aw, Jim,” I pleaded, “what’s got into you? Who wants to go to a public meeting?”

“It’s a meeting,” advanced Jim, “of the Community Betterment League. Are you not interested in the betterment of your community?”

“Awff,” I protested. “Jim, I’ve had a busy day. Here it is a swell night to just sit in front of the grate fire, listening to those apple wood logs crackling. And you want me to go out and sit in a crowded public hall and listen to a lot of windbags…”

“It won’t be crowded,” said Jim gently. “There’ll only be a handful of people out. The whole district feels the way you do, Greg. They’ll all stay home, like you, and snooze in front of their grate fires.”

“Well, what’s the matter with the community?” I demanded indignantly. “Isn’t it one of the best run communities in the world? Are there better public health services than we’ve got? Better schools? Better street cars? Better pavements?”

“There’s been a lot of crime…” ventured Jim.

“Is there a better police force in the world than we’ve got?” I lashed.

“There’s quite a lot of poverty,” mused Jim. “Off the main traffic avenues, down the side streets where guys like you and me never have to go. …there’s quite a bit of hardship, loneliness, neglect, trouble, distress…”

“Aw, we’ve got the most enlightened social services in the country,” I asserted. “Jim, leave the community alone. Leave the community in the competent hands that so far have given us so little to complain of.”

“Complain of?” murmured Jim. “Then why do you suppose the Community Betterment League has called a meeting tonight in this district? Why have they hired a hall and organized a program of special speakers?”

“My boy,” I explained, “there are some people in this world whose hobby is playing with public meetings the same as some people have a hobby of fishing or collecting old books or doing work with fret saws.”

“You’re,” suddenly sizzled Jimmie, “no citizen!”

“I,” I retorted aghast, “I… look here, Jim! I’ve been in two wars. I’ve always paid my taxes… maybe a little late… I… uh…!”

Jim just leaned back and watched me be astonished.

“A citizen,” he said quietly after a moment, “should take an interest in the affairs of his city. Or his town. Or his township. To be a citizen, it is not enough to be a successful business man. It isn’t enough to be a hard-working man, who obeys all the laws, pays his taxes, keeps his premises clean.”

“What more… ?” I tried to interrupt indignantly.

Not to Be Bandied About

“To be a good citizen,” went on Jim calmly, it isn’t enough to be a successful man. In the newspapers, it says, ‘Prominent Citizen Dies,’ but when you examine the facts, you find that some greedy cunning old guy has devoted his entire life and energies to building up a large business, employing hundreds of people, erecting a magnificent factory, but in his whole life, he never attended a political meeting.”

“Well, heh, heh,” I scoffed. “I should hope not! Imagine a successful business man going and sitting at the ordinary political meeting, with a lot of local wind-bags seizing the opportunity to sound off. Why, a business man would risk his health attending one of those stupid meetings. He might get so angry, sitting listening to all the drivel, that he’d have a heart attack. Maybe a thrombosis….”

“Okay,” said Jim. “Then don’t let him aspire to the title of citizen. Don’t let him imagine he is a citizen. He’s nothing more or less than a prominent business man. And in the newspapers, it should merely say, ‘Prominent Business Man Dies.’ This word citizen is too noble a title to be bandied about.”

“I suppose,” I sneered, “that, you would call those wind-bags who DO take the floor at public meetings, you’d call them citizens, would you?”

“Most certainly,” said Jim. “The least of them, the poorest of them, is a better citizen than the clever, wealthy, successful man who ignores his duty to take his common share of public affairs.”

“Now, look here, Mr. Frise,” I declared, “who do you suppose runs this country? Who do you suppose takes a REAL interest in the public affairs of the country? Is it those insignificant wind-bags you hear spouting at public meetings? Or is it the men of affairs, the men of substance, the business men, yes, the PROMINENT business men, who, behind the scenes, and at caucuses and private meetings, GET THE REAL JOB DONE!”

“Do you insinuate,” asked Jim coolly, “that this country is not run according to democratic principles? Do you suggest that we are not controlled by representative government?”

“Aw, Jim,” I pleaded, “you don’t for one minute suppose that our big, wealthy citizens just sit back and let the country be run by the kind of people who attend public meetings? My dear man, the real government of the country is in the hands of the men smart enough, wealthy enough to get their way in politics the same as they get their way in their own factories or businesses.”

“They get together,” supposed Jim, “in private board rooms? They don’t HAVE to attend public meetings?”

“Exactly,” I pointed out.

“Then,” said Jim smoothly, “you are content to leave the world in the hands of the powerful few? The same powerful few who lately put the whole world, and all its humble, teeming millions, through the most savage torture in all recorded history? You are content…”

“Hold on,” I protested. “We went to war as a whole people. We weren’t driven into it. It was by overwhelming public consent that we decided we couldn’t come under the dominion of Hitler…”

“And I suppose,” posed Jim, “that it was by overwhelming popular consent that we allowed Hitler to rise to power? Those few, those crafty few, that band of brothers whom we left to run our world for us, weren’t responsible for the rise of Hitler, eh?”

“We had nothing to do with that,” I stated flatly. “The thing just grew. It grew without us noticing it. We were busy with our own private affairs, all through 1939, 1936, 1938…”

“Yeah, and leaving the world to our betters, to the gentlemen in the board rooms,” struck Jimmie. “Do you remember 1938? Do you not recollect there were little meetings, little ill- attended meeting all over this country, all over every country, trying to rouse us to what was coming? Don’t you remember that?”

“I… uh,” I argued.

“No, you don’t remember,” accused Jim. “Because you were too busy sitting at home before the grate fire, listening to the apple wood logs crackling.”

“I… uh,” I pointed out.

“It won’t do,” cried Jimmie, suddenly standing up. “The world right now is in too perilous a state for anybody to stay at home.”

“But what has a meeting of the Community Betterment League,” I groaned, “got to do with the state of the world?”

“Maybe very little,” agreed Jim, “but it’s a public meeting. And by golly, we’re going! In fact, we’re going to ALL public meetings from now on.”

I just sat there. Imagine going to ALL public meetings!

A Lesson Learned

“If the past 20 years has taught us, the common people of the world, one lesson,” went on Jim loudly, “it is that we can’t trust the world in the hands of self-appointed leaders. We’ve got self-appointed leaders in this country just the way Germany had with Hitler. Rich guys, ambitious guys, smooth, get-together guys! Maybe they don’t use gangster organizations on us – yet! But unless we’re a lot more stupid than I think, unless we are really as stupid as these self-appointed guys think, we’re going to protect ourselves from them, we’re going to start taking an interest in our own LIVES…

“Aw, Jim,” I sighed, “there’s a lethargy in the common man.”

“Not lethargy,” corrected Jim. “Inertia. That’s different. A lot different. With inertia, all you’ve got to do is start it moving!”

“Inertia,” I pondered. “I don’t know, Jim. If you put together all the reasons people don’t go out to public meetings, they’d add up to something more than mere inertia. They don’t want the even tenor of their ways upset. They want to go to the movie. They want to sit at home. They want to go out and call on friends. Or they want to have friends in. All the reasons are little reasons. But they add up.”

“Yeh, they add up,” said Jimmie. “We are like on a ship. We’ve all retired to the comfort of our cabins. The ship plunges through the night. We are at the mercy of the captain and the crew.”

“Okay,” I submitted, “but at least, on a ship, the captain and the crew are selected and appointed according to laws and rules so strict and severe that there is little chance of them running us on the rocks. We don’t let the guy who just WANTS to be captain run the ship.”

“Aw,” smiled Jim, “then you will come to the meeting?”

“I’ll,” I said grudgingly, “come to the meeting.”

And we put on our coats and hats, it being just a little before 8 p.m., to walk the five blocks over to the public hall where the meeting was being held.

It was a fine, crisp night. And we enjoyed the walk. About three blocks down, we noticed that Rusty, Jim’s so-called Irish water spaniel, was with us. It isn’t Irish, and it hates water. But it loves masculine company, especially at night, in the open air, when something seems afoot.

“Hey, go on home, you,” I commanded.

“Aw, he can sit outside the hall,” objected Jim. “He’ll be all right.”

“Dogs aren’t invited to public meetings, Jim,” I protested.

“He’ll go back home when we go in the hall,” assured Jim.

And at the corner, just as Rusty rounded a hedge, there was a sudden scuffle, and a large Nazi dog, a large totalitarian, Fascist dog that had apparently been lying in wait behind the hedge, pounced out on Rusty and you never heard such a riot on a quiet residential street.

The dog’s owner came around the corner – he may have been on his way to the meeting too, for all I know – and taking a hasty glance to see whether his dog was on top or underneath, shouted out, “Hey, Bonzo, not so rough!”

He was a big, burly guy, like his dog.

But Jim and I were both running full tilt, for Rusty was decidedly the under dog.

“Rough!” I yelled, as I took a flying kick at the strange mutt. “That hyena?”

I always believe in kicking a dog fight apart. A good swift kick does less harm than another 10 seconds of fighting, I always say.

But I missed. Jim made a grab into the scuffle, and I whirled to come in for another dandy on the ribs of the top dog when the stranger got me by the coat collar and said, in a calm, authoritative voice, “Now, now, my little whiffet….”

I detest the word whiffet. I don’t mind half pint, shorty, or even squirt. But whiffet…!

I lunged.

The big fellow gave me a hearty shake, chuckling very reasonably.

Rules Suspended

Meantime the dog fight was going on with increased fury. Rusty had got in a little nip or two on the top dog’s more delicate anatomy, and its yowls, intermixed with its snarls, and Rusty’s protests of murder, were certainly creating a warlike mood.

Now, when a man much larger than you so far forgets the Marquis of Queensberry rules as to manhandle a smaller man, is the smaller man still bound by the Marquis of Queensberry rules?

I don’t know. I personally think not.

Should I have permitted myself to be held suspended there in space while a dog fight went on, and my friend’s dog, Rusty, was being savagely murdered?

I think not.

So, bracing my feet, I swung my elbow hard and deep into the large man’s exposed bay window. I felt my elbow sink a good foot.

The big fellow, with an astounding intake of breath, let limply go of me and fell smothering to the ground.

At which his dog let go of Rusty and ran yelping up the street into the night.

And out came a number of neighbors from several directions, in their shirt sleeves, to witness Jimmie and me attempting to erect the large stranger off the pavement.

“Who hit him?” demanded the first comers.

“He did,” said Jim briefly, indicating me at the head end of the gentleman still fighting for his wind.

From mouth to mouth the wonder flew, as they all got the large man up on his feet, and all eyes were on me.

“He… uh,” said Jim, to the assembled neighbors, “it was hardly…”

I think he was going to tell them just what I had done to the stranger.

Two of the neighbors led the large man unsteadily up the street.

“Best thing has happened around here for years,” whispered one of the gathering, delightedly pumping my hand. “He and his dog. They go out every night for a walk, looking for a dog fight….”

And everybody pumped my hand. My foul hand. They should have shaken my elbow.

I brushed away from them.

“Jim,” I said, “I’m winded, too upset to go to any meeting.”

“Same here,” said Jim shortly, whistling for Rusty.

And we walked home in silence.

“That was an awful jab you gave that poor guy,” said Jim, at last unable to keep to himself. “You might have burst his appendix.”

“I felt something burst,” I said, not without satisfaction.

“Are you proud of it?” demanded Jim grimly.

“Weeelll…” I said comfortably.

“Gosh,” ruminated Jim bitterly, “there we were, heading for a meeting of the Community Betterment League…..”

“It’s the way I told you, Jim,” I assured, taking his elbow and leading up my sidewalk toward my house and the grate fire of apple wood logs, “something absurd is always preventing a man from attending his public duty. A dog fight… or something.”

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, March 2, 1946.

“Squabble, squabble,” muttered Jimmie Frise, “always squabbling!” “Who?” I inquired.

We had got a seat in the street car, and Jim had settled comfortably to read the front page of the newspaper.

“Everybody,” replied Jim. “Squabbles at all levels. Nations squabbling. Provinces squabbling. Cities squabbling. Counties, townships. Sections of cities. Employer versus employee. Husband against wife…”

“You’re reading the news, Jim,” I explained. “Turn to the sporting pages…”

“More squabbles,” said Jim. “What is sport but organized squabbles?”

“Okay, then,” I chuckled, “turn to the comics.”

“Comics?” scoffed Jim. “Tragics, you mean! Nothing but squabbles there. Even the laughs are got with squabbles.”

“Of course,” I explained, “after all, Jim, life itself is a contest. The very essence of life is conflict. It isn’t only among human beings. There isn’t a single living creature, not even a tree, not even grass, that does not live by conflict.”

“Just look at this front page!” said Jim, spreading the paper out. “Look! The nations gathered together to find peace. And they are fighting like tigers. Look! A wife shoots her husband! And here one province says that other provinces are trying to rob her. Here – two giant trucks collide on highway. I suppose the two drivers were each trying to hog the centre of the road.”

“We human beings,” I submitted, “may look like monsters. But you ought to see what goes on in wild nature. Not a tree grows but has fought to the death hundreds of its brothers. The seeds of a maple fall. They germinate and take root. From that instant, it is a battle to the death among these infant maples. They try to strangle each other’s roots. They try to smother each other by cutting off the sunlight and air. I’ll say this for infant human beings: they aren’t bloodthirsty like the young of most other living creatures.”

“I guess babies are about the only really decent human beings,” agreed Jim.

“Only when they are helpless and lying on their backs,” I pointed out. “Put two babies old enough to crawl in the same crib, and they immediately start demonstrating that life is a struggle. They try to rob each other. They poke each other in the eye with their fingers. As soon as they get two teeth, they seem to know what they are for, and sink them into the fat little hind leg of the other baby…”

“Holy smoke,” protested Jim. “Isn’t there anything in the world that is really peaceful? How about music?”

“Haw, music!” I snorted. “You make music by the conflict of hair from a horse’s tail scraped across a string made of sheep’s gut. You create music by the conflict of human wind trying to escape through a brass tube, and the vibration of its efforts to escape makes the music. You get the whole foundation of music in the rhythm, which is produced by pounding a drumstick on a stretched sheep’s hide. Music peaceful!”

“Flowers?” pleaded Jim anxiously.

“Like the maple tree infant I mentioned,” I stated, “a flower is the product of a vicious unseen battle, from the tiny seed to the triumphant bush that has beaten all its kith and kin back into the soil to feed it. The very best food for plants is the humus of other plants that have been destroyed in the battle of life.”

“Well…” sighed Jim a little desperately, turning the page and examining page two with eager hope.

“We are always looking for peace, Jim,” I philosophized, “when, as a matter of simple fact, we ought to be looking for controlled and organized conflict. Nowhere in the living world is there peace, or anything like it. We human beings ought to recognize that fact and start working out an entirely new philosophy of life.”

An Eternal Struggle

“Isn’t somebody always trying to do that?” demanded Jim.

“No; so far,” I pointed out, “everybody with a new philosophy or a new political scheme promises peace at the end of it. To bring industrial peace… says one. You might as well bring silent music. You might as well try to think of motionless movement. Industry itself is conflict.”

“And we can’t live without industry,” proffered Jim.

“So we can’t live without conflict,” I wound up. “Therefore, that the whole world has to agree on is -conflict is basic. Now let us organize and control conflict for the common good.”

“Yeah,” laughed Jimmie, “and what is the common good? That’s like the question Pontius Pilate asked.”

“The common good,” I explained, “is food and shelter.”

“Food and shelter!” cried Jim. “Do you call that the common good?”

“I do,” I asserted. “Absolutely guarantee food and shelter to every human being everywhere, every day, without fail, without the possibility of failure – and you’ve got the world by the tail.”

“What nonsense,” scoffed Jim. “Why, life consists of a thousand things…”

“No, sir,” I cut in. “Food and shelter is the secret of it all. Give every living human being guaranteed, unfailing food and shelter, every day of their lives. From there on, they will branch up into the thousand and one other things of life. They can cook the food well, or cook it poorly. They can make themselves nice homes or they can continue to dwell in slovenly hovels. They can be ambitious and build cathedrals, great cities; or they can just lie around in the sun, doing nothing, and waiting for the next guaranteed meal. But – the way the world is now, the tragic struggle for food and shelter is essential to our whole way of life. There are millions of men who truly and passionately believe that if you didn’t force the common man to struggle for his food and shelter, nobody would do ANY work.”

“I begin to see your point,” admitted Jim.

“If you didn’t make the masses of mankind worry,” I went on, “about where their next meal was coming from, or how they were going to pay the rent, why, you couldn’t hire anybody to work for you for love or money.”

“Well, neither you could,” asserted Jim. “You give everybody a house for nothing, and guarantee him food, as you say, every day, without fail – and how many of us would go to work?”

“There, Mr. Frise,” I triumphed, “I have you! You are guilty of blasphemy. As a Christian, you admit that men are made in God’s image. So you proceed on the assumption that they are made in the devil’s image and treat them like dogs. You deny them the simplest fundamentals, food and shelter, and then say to them – now work, you devils, or else starve and freeze to death.”

“Not me,” interrupted Jimmie. “I didn’t. say that!”

“But when you assume,” I pursued, “that if you gave all men, everywhere, in North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, their shelter and food guaranteed, none of them would go to work, you say it.”

“A lot of them wouldn’t,” insisted Jim.

“A lot of them don’t now,” I pointed out. “But by far the vast majority of men have as urgent a desire to work, to be doing something, as they have to eat or to be warm. If for no other reason than to escape from the wife and kids during the day, plenty of men will take a job. But in the great mass of mankind there is a natural instinct to work, to do something, to create something. In our present social system, we ignore that basic instinct. We threaten all mankind with starvation and death from exposure, unless he works.”

“We Need Some Air”

“Well, how can it be changed?” demanded Jim.

“It’s being changed right under your nose,” I announced. “All over the world. All the ‘isms’ are doing nothing else but changing that basic error. Trades unionism, socialism, communism – all the ‘isms’ are the expression of the common man’s decision that he isn’t going to be starved and frozen to death any more. It would be hard to say how many human beings have been starved and frozen to death in past centuries due to this highly respected belief. I bet a hundred thousand, nay, maybe a million human beings have perished from the consequences of poor diet or exposure, for one who has died in war.”

“Probably so,” agreed Jim.

“Yet, we are struggling furiously to correct war,” I submitted, “and at the same time struggling furiously to maintain the old theory that if you don’t work, you starve.”

“You have a dirty way,” accused Jimmie, “of presenting the case.”

“I find this street car,” I digressed, “very stuffy, don’t you?”

“You’ve got yourself all worked up,” explained Jim. “If you’re going to make speeches on the social system, you ought to wear lighter underwear.”

“I’m going to open this window a bit,” I said, reaching up and taking hold of the winder that winds the street car window up.

Outside it was a nice, crisp afternoon. I wound the window up four inches and a refreshing gush of sweet air blew in.

“Aha, that’s better, I heaved, taking a good breath. “Well, Jim, the whole human problem is getting clearer, week by week, month by month.”

“It sure is,” chuckled Jimmie, nudging me and nodding towards the lady sitting in front of us. She was very ostentatiously shrugging her shoulders and pulling her collar up around her neck.

“A little fresh air,” I said, “never hurt anybody. This car is foggy, it’s so stuffy. As I was saying. Jim, one thing about all the conflict of ideas raging in the world today, it’s bound to work us nearer to some sort of understanding of the basic problems. And I think one of the basic…”

“Would you mind,” suddenly said the lady in front, turning sharply around, “shutting that window, please?”

“Pardon me,” I said, “but this car is positively steamy. Don’t you find it too warm?”

“I’ve just got out of bed from the flu,” said the lady tartly.

“I’ll run it down a little,” I agreed.

I wound the window down to two inches. “Is that better now, madam?” I inquired solicitously.

She waited a moment and then said: “I don’t feel it blowing on me now, thank you.”

“The basic thing they are going to discover, Jim,” I resumed, “as the result of all this world-wide conflict of ideas, is that lawless enterprise, whether by individuals, or companies or nations, can no longer be tolerated. And lawless enterprise simply can’t exist, unless it has vast numbers of slave workers at its command, living in daily fear for their food and shelter.”

I felt something brush my hat from behind, and then noticed the window beside me, which was open only two inches, quietly closing.

I turned quickly, and saw the man who sat behind me, standing up, leaning over and calmly winding the handle over my head.

The handle, I might say, of MY window. I sat for a minute thinking. Then I calmly reached up, and wound the window up two inches.

“Listen, windbag,” said a voice right in my ear – in fact, he leaned forward and spoke under the brim of my hat – “that breeze is blowing right back on me.”

“This is my window,” I retorted. “I’m sitting here.”

“Try, the window ahead of you, squirt,” said the voice under my hat brim, “and see, how it feels, blowing icicles on you.”

“I don’t intend to smother,” I asserted.

“And I,” said the voice, “don’t intend to freeze.”

Might versus Right

And he stood up, leaned forward and proceeded to wind the window down.

I looked at Jim. He was deeply engrossed in the sport page. But there was a curious expression on his face.

He seemed to be listening and watching and holding his breath.

I braced myself, reached up and took hold of the handle. I started to wind. And as I did so, I felt a large hand descend on my shoulder, another hand seized my wrist and wrenched it from the knob.

The man was not merely bigger than I, he was standing up and had the advantage of me. I struggled. But he won. He wound the window shut.

“Good for you,” called the lady sitting in front of me.

And several others joined in various growls, mutters and snorts of approval for my adversary.

What can you do when you are the victim of indignity?

I sat for a moment, watching Jim out of the corner of my eye. He seemed engrossed in the racing news. He seemed not to notice what was going on around him.

“Jim,” I said, “is this a free country, or isn’t it? Are you going to sit there and be smothered to death?”

“Smothered,” said Jim heavily, “starved or frozen to death – that seems to be the destiny of us all.”

“You’re laughing.” I charged.

“Who? Me?” protested Jim.

I suddenly got mad. I reached up and wound the window a foot wide.

The man behind me did not seize my shoulder this time.

He took the flat of his big hand and brought it down on top of my hat. With his full weight, he squashed me down in my seat, my hat shoved over my eyes and nose. And he held me there while he wound the window shut.

He leaned down and spoke to me before taking his hand off the top of my head.

“Listen, Shorty,” he gritted, “you touch, that window once more, and I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll take you and shove you through the window!”

He sat back. I slowly erected myself and straightened my hat.

All around, I could hear laughter, chuckles, snickers and comments of a highly approving character.

“Jim,” I said, rising, “I’m not staying on this car another instant. If a citizen can be subjected to such indignity in public and with such complete public approval…”

“Hire a hall,” said a lady across the aisle.

I pulled the bell cord and walked to the exit. Jim followed.

“It’s only four blocks,” said Jim, as the car moved away. “The walk will do us good.”

“I couldn’t get into a fight with the guy,” I protested excitedly. “He was twice my size. Why didn’t you show more spunk?”

“Weeelll,” cogitated Jimmie, as we set off homeward on foot, “to tell the truth, I couldn’t just figure out which side I was on.”

“Jim, the car stank, it was so stuffy,” I cried. “As a measure of public health, as a sanitary measure, Jim, I opened that window. In the public welfare…”

“Yeah,” pondered Jim, adjusting his long stride to my short one, “the public welfare. You see, some of those people had light underwear on and some heavy. Some were warm-blooded people like you, and others were cold-blooded like me.”

“I was smothering,” I asserted.

“And the guy behind you was freezing,” said Jim. “It’s hard to adjust temperature to please everybody. It’s hard to adjust anything to please everybody. It depends so much on how much clothing you’ve got on, how much food you’ve eaten, and whether you are hot or cold by nature…”

“Ah, squabble, squabble, squabble…” I admitted.